


Marginal Notes: Indelible

by leaper182



Series: Sketches of the Soul [2]
Category: The Hobbit (2012), The Hobbit (Jackson Movies), The Hobbit - All Media Types, The Hobbit - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-07-24
Updated: 2014-08-08
Packaged: 2017-12-21 05:59:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 11,412
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/896653
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/leaper182/pseuds/leaper182
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This is a collection of side scenes, other POVs, and DVD extras for "Indelible" as I think of them?</p><p><b>ETA:</b> [10/20/14] Since I'm going to have a second Marginal Notes fic for the currently untitled quest-fic, I went ahead and added that this version concerns "Indelible" so that people don't get confused. I'm still going to be adding scenes as they come to me from this fic, but I didn't want there to be confusion when I started posting Marginal Notes for the quest.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Impossible Recognition (Chapter 13, Dwalin POV)

**Author's Note:**

> As always, a heartfelt thank-you to ForAllLove, Elsajeni, and Penniform for all of their hard work in beta-reading "Indelible" for me. They've been taking a gander over these as I come up with them too, but I dunno if there's going to be any that end up being unbeta'd by accident.
> 
> As a warning, these might or might not end up in chronological order! I'm going to include where in the narrative they happen in the chapter title, as well as whose POV it takes place in.

This had to be one of the few times that Fili and Kili were actually giving as good as they were able, instead of just goofing around and showing off.

As he twisted out of the way of Kili’s borrowed sword, he found himself thinking they should do this more often.

It wasn’t a perfect substitute for a _real_ battle, with blood and death-cries and the vicious satisfaction of feeling Grasper and Keeper slicing through flesh, but it was almost enough.

Dwalin had to hold himself back a couple times, only taking swipes at openings instead of pressing his full advantage like he would have in real combat. Kili was leaving his left side open a lot more than was safe for him, and the weight of the war hammer was throwing off Fili’s balance enough that he took longer than he should have with recovering.

There were a few times when the boys would back off for a moment that Dwalin could feel something on the back of his neck, like someone was watching him, but seeing as how they were surrounded by the recruits he usually had training with the princes, he shook it off.

It wasn’t until he turned once that he noticed a figure out of the corner of his eye. _He doesn’t belong here--_ he thought to himself before he turned back and caught the haft of Fili’s war hammer, deftly twisting it so that the boys collided with one another.

Instinct had him glance at the figure.

 _No weapon. Ori. Not a threat,_ he assured himself before turning back to the boys--

The second thought registered, and he stopped in mid-motion, his muscles tightening against his desire to bring Keeper down onto Kili’s blade.

 _Ori?_ he thought blankly before turning back. _What are you doing here?_

When he turned back, he saw the young dwarf’s brown eyes widen, his slight frame -- _too short, too skinny, too young_ \-- shaking as he watched.

Dwalin didn’t realize he’d been hit until his helm started ringing like a bell.

His legs wobbled under the force of the impact. Grasper dropped from his hand to clatter to the hard earth of the training ground. Sucking in a quick breath, Dwalin reached up and wrenched off the helm.

When he looked up again, he saw Ori’s eyes -- those beautiful brown eyes that reminded him of a stag he’d seen one time in a forest somewhere, during the years after Erebor's loss -- widen.

 _Mahal’s beard,_ Dwalin thought to himself as he stared. _He looks like he_ recognizes _me._

He breathed deeply, the silence almost deafening after the din the recruits had kicked up during the fight. _He couldn’t have,_ he thought quickly, _I’ve kept my helm on. He wouldn’t know me unless he’s soulspoken already--_

Dwalin’s heart plummeted in his chest.

Ori was still staring at him, frozen in place.

Instinct made him want to drop his helm, drop Keeper, and run to him, catch him up in his arms, and not let go. He wanted to bury his face against that soft-looking neck and _breathe_ for the first time in his life.

The ache had disappeared nearly sixty years ago, but now it felt like a warg had torn his chest open and was feasting on his heart.

He nearly stepped forward, but he remembered the soulspeaking that had happened nearly four months ago.

 _That’s not where his shoulders are supposed to be,_ he’d thought to himself then. _They’re supposed to be higher, wider._

Dwalin set his jaw, irritation rising up at not being able to move forward, to look his soulmate in the eye and say hello to him -- _he’s still a child, you miserable bastard._

His throat burned at the growl running through it, and when he caught sight of a recruit out of the corner of his eye, he remembered that he had an audience.

More importantly, he had targets he could unleash his anger on.

He bent down to pick up Grasper, and adjusted his grip on both axes with a practiced flourish.

Roaring in frustration at not being able to tell the world to fuck off because he had a soulmate, and he was _here_ , and he wanted to just _hold_ him, Dwalin turned on Fili and Kili and swung.

He didn’t know how long he swam in his anger, let it soak into his skin, let it burn in his muscles and fuel his movements, but when he finally surfaced, the recruits were whooping and hollering, Fili and Kili were kneeling on the ground and panting heavily...

And Ori was long gone.


	2. Less a Request (Chapter 5, Balin POV)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Balin was about to ask something else as he watched Dwalin reach over and snatch two more cookies off the tray. “Stealing my cookies isn’t going to encourage me to accept him all the faster, brother.”
> 
> Dwalin scowled at him and took the rest anyway. “I’ll keep stealing all your cookies until you take him on.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here's that screwy chronology showing up! I wonder if I should've posted this one first, but I know that people were wondering what was going through Dwalin's mind when Ori saw him for the first time.

Balin looked up from reading over the latest contract from the gemcutters’ guild as the door to his office burst open.

Easing the magnifying glass from his eye, he leaned back in his chair to regard his brother with no small amount of curiosity. “Brother! What brings you here?”

Dwalin scowled at him. “You said I could come anytime I wished.”

“Aye, I did,” Balin acknowledged with a nod, “but you don’t usually take me up on the offer. Tea?”

Dwalin turned his scowl on the tea tray before he swiped a cookie. “Found you a new apprentice.”

Balin blinked. “I didn’t realize I needed one?”

Dwalin went back to scowling at him. “You haven’t had one in years.”

“Seeing as how you’ve only been back for a few years, I could see why you’d think so,” Balin said with a smile. At his younger brother’s dark look, Balin chuckled. “All right, tell me about this new apprentice I should take on.”

“He’s young,” Dwalin blurted out after a moment. “And his hands are always covered in ink.”

Balin watched with growing fascination as his brother’s cheeks slowly turned red. “And...?”

Dwalin ate his cookie and glared.

Balin checked a sigh. “Who is he? Who are his parents?”

“Weren’t you the one saying that family shouldn’t be a deciding factor in taking on apprentices?” Dwalin growled, folding his arms across his chest defensively.

“Aye,” Balin agreed, a little surprised at his brother remembering an idle rant from when they’d first arrived in Ered Luin. “But if I’m going to offer the boy an apprenticeship, I’m going to have to talk to his parents, see what potential he has, what he’s done so far to merit consideration.”

Dwalin threw himself into the armchair on the other side of Balin’s desk and continued glaring at him. “His name’s Ori. Son of Haldi. He’s in the refugee sector. His father’s dead, but he lives with his brothers.”

Well, that explained Dwalin’s getting defensive about the boy’s family. Balin nodded. “All right. Have you seen any of his work?”

Dwalin frowned, and to anyone else, it would have looked like he was back to scowling, but Balin knew his younger brother was trying to remember. “He’s got a writing desk. I thought I saw something there.”

Balin silently asked Mahal for patience. “Any idea what it might have looked like?”

Dwalin blew out an irritated sigh. “How should I know? It looked legible enough.”

Balin was about to ask something else as he watched Dwalin reach over and snatch two more cookies off the tray. “Stealing my cookies isn’t going to encourage me to accept him all the faster, brother.”

Dwalin scowled at him and took the rest anyway. “I’ll keep stealing all your cookies until you take him on.”

Balin snorted. “I hardly think depriving me of baked goods is going to get you what you want.”

***

“Why do you want me to take him on?” Balin asked as Dwalin made his hourly raid on his tea tray.

Dwalin glared at him. “He’s not going to get an apprenticeship otherwise.” He plucked the cookies from the tray and shoved one into his mouth as left.

***

“There’s lots of dwarves in Ered Luin who can’t get apprenticeships, and you’re not advocating I take them all in,” Balin pointed out without looking up from his contract.

Dwalin grunted, picked up the cookies, and left, a trail of cookie crumbs littering the carpet in his wake.

***

“Why does this one dwarf merit such a champion, I wonder?” Balin asked distractedly. He was in the middle of drawing up a new contract for the labor talks that were going to happen on the morrow, and Dwalin had barged in mid-sentence.

Dwalin stopped and looked around in confusion. “Where’s the tray?”

Balin finished the sentence he’d been writing before looking up. “I sincerely hope you don’t think I’m going to _help_ you. You’ve been stealing my cookies for three days straight.”

Dwalin rolled his eyes before he unearthed the tea tray from where it had gotten covered by a stray roll of parchment. Plucking the cookies from the tray, he looked at his loot critically. “Switched to cinnamon, have you?”

“I thought you would get tired of oatmeal raisin,” Balin said with a smile, sitting back in his chair. “Dwalin.”

Dwalin looked up from the cookie he’d been examining to shoot his brother a steady look.

“Why?” Balin asked gently.

Dwalin looked back down at the cookies and took a large bite out of one of them.

Balin poured a cup of tea and slid it over towards him. Then he waited.

Dwalin swallowed, accepting the cup and sipping it carefully, reminding Balin of all those times with their mother, learning good table manners. The tea drinking, it seemed, was the only lesson that had stuck.

Balin raised his eyebrows at his younger brother.

Dwalin sighed, holding up another cookie for inspection. “He’s Nori’s little brother.”

“Ah,” Balin said, nodding. Nori was a criminal that Dwalin had met fairly soon after starting with the city watch. A young lad from the refugee sector with a smart mouth, if Balin recalled his brother’s early rants about him correctly, but Dwalin had somehow started a very unlikely friendship with the younger dwarf. Balin wasn’t quite sure he understood it himself -- the best he could theorize was that while Dwalin and Nori were on opposite sides of the law, they each had a mutual respect for competence. Between that, and Nori’s “accidental” assistance in helping Dwalin to arrest more dangerous criminals, they were almost friends.

Dwalin turned red before shoving another cookie in his mouth.

“Did Nori ask you...?”

Dwalin shook his head firmly. “He’s gone to ground again. I only met the boy when I went to Nori’s house to find him.”

Balin leaned his elbows on his desk, lacing his fingers together. “What’s he like?”

Dwalin snorted. “Short. Underfed.”

Balin rolled his eyes. “I’m sure you talked to him?” he prompted.

“Oh, aye,” Dwalin mumbled, eying another of his hoard and definitely not looking at his brother. “He’s got promise. And a spine.”

Balin saw the smile on his brother’s face and sighed. “If that’s the only thing I’ll get out of you,” he began, but as he spoke, he couldn’t help but watch his little brother -- _not so little anymore,_ he reminded himself -- eat another cookie.

Finally, he figured out what was so odd about the past three days -- well, other than the obvious fact that his little brother had suddenly decided to eat every single cookie Balin got from the kitchens.

Dwalin was nervous.

Sure, he’d been fighting for the lad since the first time he’d barged into Balin’s office, but he wasn’t sure of himself. More importantly, he wasn’t sure of his ability to convince Balin to take the lad on. Instead, he was belligerently telling him absolutely nothing of the boy, eating all of his cookies, and now he was standing in the middle of Balin’s office, reduced to short sentences.

There was something more to this lad Dwalin was fighting for. Something that had intrigued Dwalin, who definitely wasn’t known for his scholarly pursuits.

Dwalin was staring at him now, which made Balin remember he’d started speaking.

“I’ll have to see this lad for myself,” he finished, pouring himself a cup of tea and sipping it.

Dwalin glared at him out of pure skepticism.

“I don’t see why you’re glaring at me like that, brother,” Balin said mildly. “I would have thought you would be overjoyed that I’m considering taking the lad on.”

Dwalin kept glaring at him.

Balin sighed and answered the unspoken question. “You’ve been waging a campaign against my tea tray for the past three days, and you’re not a scholar. You can’t expect me to not get curious when I finally see what’s in front of my eyes.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I still have more chapters coming, especially ones relating to Chapter 15. I haven't forgotten, and I promise they'll be up in the coming week!


	3. Treacherous Ground (Chapter 14, Guest POV)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> If any of these side scenes could be considered deleted scenes, I think it might be this one. Yeah, Ori's not directly in the scene itself, but there's a big difference between how this scene was written, and how it played out in the fic.
> 
> This takes place in the middle of Chapter 14, and I think you should be able to see where it slots in?

Standing at attention for hours on end was something he’d been trained for when he joined the city watch, but ever since he’d seen three of the watch fall like pole-axed cows after standing at attention for four hours because some windbag noble loved the sound of his own voice, he’d gotten paranoid about standing at attention for too long.

When he was walking his route, he was usually, well, _walking_ , but when Captain Dwalin asked for a personal favor, he wasn’t that inclined to say no, especially seeing that his captain didn’t mind paying favors back in kind. For an Erebor sort, Dwalin was one of the few faces in the Watch he’d found he can trust. Funnily enough, the esteemed Captain Solvi, homegrown hero of Ered Luin, wasn’t one of them.

This assignment was almost laughable: keep an eye on a tailoring shop, just outside of the refugee sector. Despite what most of the homegrown watch thought, the refugees themselves weren’t all that bad. Some of them were prickly, but that was because they’d gotten the short end of the axe when they’d got in out of the rain, wasn’t it? Uprooted from home, forced to wander for years, and then the one place that allowed them to stay was full of people looking down their noses at them.

He nodded politely to a couple that passed by, tugging their little boy along. He gave the little boy a slow nod, which the wide-eyed boy returned, and then returned his attention to the shop.

He would be the first to admit that he wasn’t entirely sure _why_ this shop was important -- it wasn’t one of the ones that looked like it catered to Longshanks’ clientele, for one. And for another, the only dwarf of interest seemed to be the second-in-command -- odd, since he wasn’t related to the owner. And if the second-in-command was crooked, he’d eat his helm.

“What did I say about being conspicuous?”

He turned to the voice and raised his eyebrows as he saw Dwalin, out of uniform, approaching him. “Make up your mind, lad,” he said with a snort. “Either I’m to mind the shop with my full attention, or I’m to skulk about and get caught with my hand in the cookie jar. And we both know who has the bigger sweet-tooth between the two of us.”

Dwalin scowled at him. “You’re standing in the middle of the street in full uniform.”

“And you’re dressing down your sergeant while _out_ of uniform,” he pointed out blandly. “Which of us is drawing more attention, eh?”

He turned to look at the shop, just in time to see a young dwarf head inside. Cropped auburn hair, a few braids, knitted sweater... “That’s a new one. He doesn’t work there.”

“He’s Dori’s little brother,” Dwalin growled. “Never mind him.”

He frowned back at his captain. “That’s not Nori.”

Dwalin rolled his eyes. “No, that’s Ori.”

“How many of them are there?” he asked, a bit bewildered. “Their mother wasn’t part rabbit, was she?”

Dwalin’s scowl was truly becoming a sight to see. “Just the three sons, and the youngest doesn’t concern you.”

“But he _does_ concern you,” he said with a smile half-hidden in his salt-and-pepper beard. “What’s he to you, then? Another informant, like Nori?”

“It’s my business what he is to me,” Dwalin snarled. “And you’ll keep your nose out of it.”

He watched his captain turn back to the shop, just in time to see Dori and the smaller one -- Ori -- leaving. One idle glance at his captain turned into a shocked stare. Anybody who didn’t know him would think he was ready to murder the two dwarves walking down the street. But after serving with him for two years... well, you got to know a dwarf. “Captain?”

Dwalin’s jaw clenched, his eyes watching the pair head towards the refugee sector. “What’s your report.”

“Eh?” he asked, tilting his head.

“Your report,” Dwalin snapped. “Have you seen--”

“Any suspicious activity?” he finished briskly. “A few familiar faces lingering around the shop, but no overt moves just yet. I imagine that they’re going to start harassing the owner in the next few days -- it’s how they usually start.”

A muscle twitched in Dwalin’s jaw. “It’s not going to be a protection racket. They’re after something.”

He frowned, his thick eyebrows making what was a thoughtful gesture look ominous. “This related to Nori going to ground?”

Dwalin snorted. “He’s not a fox.”

He shrugged. “He’s acting like a prey animal. You’ll not see him surface ‘til he’s good and ready.”

Dwalin shook his head. “We’re not focused on Nori now. Whatever he knows about Kollr and Solvi, he’s not telling anyone.”

“But they don’t know that,” he said slowly. “And if they think he told his family...”

Dwalin nodded tightly. “Ori’s already under protection. Dori’s going to be the weak link.”

He snorted loudly. “Beggin’ your pardon, sir,” he said, his tone oozing with sarcasm, “but if Dori’s the weak link, I’ve got a gate of Moria to sell you. I heard how he took out two of Kollr’s men a few years back.”

Dwalin looked like he’d eaten something that had gone bad when he wasn’t looking. Looked like he was still smarting over three of Kollr’s dwarves handing his arse to him a few months back. “He doesn’t have anyone watching his back, and if someone attacks him--”

“Your little Ori will be too tender-hearted to stand up to Kollr,” he finished. At the truly venomous look he got from his captain, he snorted. “Glare all you want, Captain. I’ve got eyes.”

Dwalin started puffing up like an angry cat. “I’m not one of those sons of--”

“And I’ve known you for two years,” he added dryly. “You’ve not said one word to the lad, have you?” When Dwalin didn’t answer, he smiled. “Thought not.”

Dwalin glared at him for a long moment before he sighed heavily. “He’s... important to me. I need him safe.”

He shrugged. “You don’t actually need to explain anything to me, Captain. I’ve seen a lot worse out of some of the ‘better’ members of the Watch before they were drummed out. What you’re doing is downright saintly.”

Dwalin’s shoulders stiffened in a way that meant he was fighting down a shudder. “I doubt that,” he growled.

“Whatever sharpens your axe,” he said with another shrug. “My shift’s about to end, and it looks like your lad’s in good hands. Want to grab a pint?”

Dwalin shook his head. “Ori’s going to need someone to look after him now more than ever.” He paused for a moment, and then looked faintly apologetic. “Maybe another time.”

He snorted, and then reached out a hand to pat Dwalin’s shoulder roughly. “Don’t get caught, or he might call the Watch on _you_.”

Dwalin glared at him. “You’re treading on dangerous ground, Bifur.”

Bifur shot him a rare grin, tightening his grip on his boar-spear and looking, for a moment, like his cousin. “The hunt’s never nearly as fun without a bit of treacherous footing.”


	4. Progress Report (Chapter 14, Balin POV)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This is set the night before Ori returns home from his visit to Dori in Chapter 14. Perhaps you should think of this as Chapter 14.95?
> 
> I figure that Balin would talk to Dwalin since Dwalin was the one to recommend Ori for apprenticeship in the first place, and since Balin doesn't talk to Dwalin all that often, I figured something like this would happen.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Many thanks to Elsajeni's beta-fu. :D

It was a fairly typical night, if a little quieter than usual without Ori’s quill scratching away at his desk. The contract in his hands was standard as well -- a straightforward trade of services between two of the guilds that Balin could’ve taken care of in his sleep, though professional pride had him turning the page. The only thing that wasn’t typical was Dwalin opening the door and poking his head inside.

Setting his loupe down, Balin turned to his brother. “Ah, there you are. As you can see, I’m quite alone for the moment.”

Dwalin scowled, but came inside, easing the door shut behind him. “Where’s the lad?”

Balin snorted. “Ori is currently visiting his eldest brother, though why you’re concerned about bumping into him when you’re the one who recommended I take him on is beyond me.”

Dwalin grunted, taking a seat in one of the armchairs and shooting his brother a half-hearted glare.

Balin raised his eyebrows at him. “You didn’t tell him you were the one responsible, did you.” It was phrased like a question, but both of them already knew the answer.

Dwalin confirmed it when he glanced away for a moment. Reaching forward and swiping a cookie from Balin’s tea tray, he munched on it as noisily as possible.

Balin shook his head with a chuckle. “Sometimes, I wish I knew how your mind worked, brother.”

Dwalin scowled at him, stopping mid-chew. “What do you mean by that?” Flecks of cookie landed on the edge of Balin’s desk.

Balin leaned back in his chair, eying the tea tray for a moment before turning his attention back to his brother. “First, you storm into my office and steal my cookies until I take on a student when you know I haven’t done so in at least sixty years, and then the student you foist on me is absolutely marvelous.”

Dwalin’s scowl didn’t change. “In what way?”

Balin smiled. The look on Dwalin’s face was one he’d seen so many times when they were younger, when Dwalin was irritated by something he didn’t understand. “So eager to learn, and so fragile at the same time.”

Dwalin snorted. “Fragile doesn’t make you a good apprentice.”

“But it does remind a master that not all students should be measured by the same yardstick,” Balin replied. “Would you believe that he would’ve paid himself fifteen gold pieces out of twenty for his own work, and rejected the most promising student that the scrivening guild has seen in decades?”

Dwalin snorted. “Doesn’t sound ‘marvelous’ to me.”

“He will in a moment,” Balin assured him. He took a few minutes to explain the copying exercise that he'd had Ori work on and its aftermath, watching with palpable amusement at his brother’s changing expressions.

At first, Dwalin had nodded approvingly -- all apprentices, no matter their trade, had to go through a testing period in order to see whether or not they would be willing to invest the time and effort to actually learn the craft as opposed to half-heartedly learning it to appease a parent. But as Balin talked about how the exercise continued well past the point when most apprentices would have objected, Dwalin looked surprised. And finally, as Balin’s smile faded over Ori, hungover and miserable as he sat in the chair Dwalin now occupied, he talked about their conversation, and Dwalin looked... conflicted.

Balin raised his eyebrows at him, curious at the change. “Are you regretting recommending him to me, brother?”

Dwalin frowned reflexively, blustering and covering his defensiveness by messily eating one of the cinnamon cookies from the tea tray. “No, but--” He finished, he wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “Why keep him if he falls apart?”

Balin shook his head with a sigh. “Remember how I asked you what sort of work he’d done, in order to prove that he would be a good candidate for an apprenticeship?” At Dwalin’s suspicious nod, he said, “This is his work.”

He picked up one of the thickest copied drafts that he’d borrowed from Master Hamal -- it had to have been two inches of paper, easily -- and set it on his desk in front of Dwalin.

Dwalin frowned at it as though Balin had left a dead frog in front of him. “...So?”

Balin snorted. “He took the heaviest, most boring tomes from the library and tried to copy them from beginning to end. Apprentices don’t do that until they’re being considered for journeyman status.”

Dwalin’s stare this time was more thoughtful than belligerent before he glanced around at the other piles of paper on Balin’s desk. “Where’s that paper? The one he said he’d pay himself the fifteen gold pieces for?”

“I have no idea.” Balin shrugged, waving the idea away dismissively. “All the different drafts he submitted got jumbled together when I had to do a rush job for the Metalsmiths’ Grandmaster. Maybe it’s under Patience?”

Dwalin raised an eyebrow. “Patience?”

Balin snorted. “Aye. Ori named the skull, apparently.”

Dwalin stared at the skull in question, lifting it from a pile of papers and flipping through them. “Of course he’d name it,” he muttered under his breath. With a snort, he put the skull back, looking annoyed. “Well, they’re not here.”

“Ah, well,” Balin said, not that concerned. Considering how many drafts of the writing exercise Ori had given him, he didn’t need to worry about losing all of the copies for a while yet. 

Dwalin grunted, looking annoyed. “How’m I supposed to know what sort of progress he’s done if I only look at something he did a few years ago?” He waved a hand at the bound sheaf of papers in front of him.

Balin blinked. “You think he did that a few years ago?” he asked curiously, pointing at the stack Dwalin had just dismissed.

Dwalin shrugged, looking confused by the question. “Wasn’t that what you said?”

Balin snorted. “I didn’t say anything about when he did it. Look at the back page.” He nodded at the bundle. “And I’ll show you the original.”

Dwalin rolled his eyes before he picked up the papers with more care than Balin had expected of him, peeling the back page gently.

Balin turned around to the small table where he kept the stacks of tomes that Ori had copied. Squinting at the titles, he asked, “What’s the title of the one in your hand?”

Paper rustled. “Something boring about trade agreements between Belegost and Gondolin in the Second Age. Where did he even find this?”

Balin spied the title and pulled it out triumphantly. Turning back, he offered the original to Dwalin, who was eyeing the copy in his hands like it had suddenly started singing a drinking song. “I told you -- he found the most boring texts he could possibly find in the library that were in danger of falling apart, took them home, and copied them.” When he saw that Dwalin wasn’t looking up from the draft in his hands, Balin set the tome down on his desk gently. “Have you seen the back page yet?”

Dwalin shot him a scowl before doing as he was bid. When he looked down at the page, Balin could see the moment that he subtracted the years. “Eleven years ago means he would’ve been...”

“Forty-six,” Balin answered.

“And this is the entire book?” Dwalin looked startled as he hefted the pages in one hand.

Balin nodded. “Personally, I think that sort of dedication ought to be rewarded, don’t you?” he asked with a smile. “And I haven’t even talked about how quick he is at learning.”

“Quick?” Dwalin looked up from the copy with a raised eyebrow.

Balin knew he looked smug, but he didn’t care at the moment. “How far along are Fili and Kili in their training?”

Dwalin scowled. “Fili’s taken fairly well to swords, though he seems more inclined to using two instead of one with a shield. Kili’s done all right with them so far, but I think he’s leaning more towards something else.” He stopped, his scowl darkening. “Why?”

Balin grinned. “If we were talking about Ori’s progress in terms of weapons training, imagine that he had learned the absolute basics of wielding a sword, but he’s figured out enough swordplay that he’s coming up with the basics of sword-dancing on his own.” He sat back in his chair and laced his fingers over his chest. “If he’s so inclined, I might just have him start learning Elvish scripts after he learns the different ones for Cirth.”

Dwalin blinked. “You wouldn’t dare.”

Balin couldn’t contain a bark of laughter. “Afraid the dwarf you recommended for apprenticeship will start speaking Sindarin instead of Westron? After I take him to the paper mill, I might just start him on Tengwar, just to see the look on your face.”

Dwalin, with all of the wounded dignity he could muster, set the bundled sheaf of paper in his hands down on Balin’s desk, stacked all of Balin’s cookies into his hand one by one, and left with such a firmness in his step that he had the final word without having to say anything.

With a fond chuckle, Balin shook his head and returned to his work.


	5. Interrogation (Chapter 15, Balin POV)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This takes place at the end of Chapter 15, after Ori heads for bed.
> 
> Balin has questions that need answering, and Dwalin's the only one on Middle-Earth who can answer them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yay, thanks to Elsajeni for the beta-read! I wanted to get this one out before I posted the next chapter of "Indelible", so yay!

“Ah, there you are,” Balin announced when he poked his head into Dwalin’s private rooms and found him sitting in his armchair, staring into a sedate fire while drinking something from a battered tankard that had seen better decades.

Considering the tenor of their conversation a few days previous, the irony wasn’t lost on him.

Dwalin looked up, his eyebrows lifting in surprise mild enough to tell Balin that the tankard hadn’t been his first ale of the evening.

“What’d you want?” he murmured, managing a politely curious frown.

Balin snorted, entering the room without a by-your-leave, and sat himself in the empty armchair next to him. “I’d been hoping that you would be a bit more sober, but we need to talk.”

The frown scrunched into a scowl. “Oh, aye?”

Balin glared back. “Aye. It’s about your soulmate, who just happens to be my student.”

The effect his words had on Dwalin were immediate, and nothing short of miraculous. If Balin had known that emotions could smack into expressions, he wouldn’t have thought it possible, but in the firelight, he watched Dwalin’s face as surprise slammed into his wary scowl, leaving behind a look better suited for a pole-axed cow. “What?”

“You heard me, brother,” Balin snapped, ready to slap down any weak protestation Dwalin might come up with. “And don’t bother denying it. Ori’s soulcraft is astoundingly clear, given his skill at drawing.”

Dwalin’s mouth hung open for a long minute before he stared sightlessly at the fire and took a sip from his tankard.

Balin rolled his eyes. “Nothing to say, have you?”

Dwalin leaned back in his chair, cradling his tankard to his chest. “Mahal’s hammer...”

Balin stared at his brother for a long moment. He’d expected bluster, a firm denial, defensiveness, but this sort of... blankness felt extremely strange. “... Dwalin?”

Dwalin kept staring at the fire. “He recognized me after all,” he murmured.

“What do you mean?” Balin frowned.

“The first time he saw me without my helm,” Dwalin murmured, his voice still soft and flat. “He shouldn’t have recognized me at all, but he couldn’t stop staring.”

“Dwalin, I’m not understanding you.” Balin found himself using the coaxing tone he had used with Ori a few times when the lad got especially nervous. “Start from the beginning.”

The blankness disappeared, replaced by a bitter look in Dwalin’s eyes. “You already know that part.”

“Aye,” Balin said patiently, “But not all of it. You were traveling with the _uzsal_ \--”

“Don’t,” Dwalin snapped.

“Dwalin,” Balin said firmly, “you’d been running around with them for twenty years, and then one day, you stopped all of a sudden, came back, and acted as though nothing unusual had happened.” He inhaled slowly to try to calm down. “You could have told us why.”

Dwalin’s teeth gleamed in the firelight as he bared them. “Why do you care now? You and Thorin were whining so much--”

“You didn’t give it up because of us, and you know it, brother,” Balin snapped. “If you did, you would’ve stopped years before.”

Dwalin’s grip whitened on his tankard. “I grew up. What can I say?”

Balin sighed, reaching up to massage the bridge of his nose firmly. “How difficult would it have been to say, ‘I have a soulmate after all, because I just felt his birth.’ Give me _some_ credit.”

“That’s none of your business,” Dwalin growled.

“It is when my student soulspeaks in front of me,” Balin snapped. “And then tells me that you’ve only spoken to each other once. And yet, I discover that you’ve known that Ori specifically is your soulmate for... how long?”

Dwalin’s eyebrows lowered as he thought. “Four months.”

“Four months?” Balin repeated blankly.

“Give or take,” he mumbled into his tankard before taking a drink.

Balin’s expression darkened as things started adding up. Dwalin’s unusual insistence that he not only take on a new apprentice, but a specific one. Dwalin’s persistent avoidance of his office on most days, and a quick glance around when it seemed unavoidable, as though he were looking for someone. Or hoping to not see someone.

“Let me see if I understand this correctly,” Balin began, his voice sharp. “You convinced me to take your _soulmate_ on as my apprentice? And you knew, as you were stealing my cookies and glaring at me, that he was your soulmate the entire time you did it?”

Dwalin’s refusal to look up from his tankard was more than answer enough.

“What did you hope to gain by it? Were you trying to keep him close by?” A sudden, nasty thought came to mind. “Did you think you were going to seduce--”

“Finish that question, and you’re going to be meeting your soulmate in the Halls of Waiting,” Dwalin said sharply, glaring at him with eyes whose color had been leeched black by the flickering shadows in the room.

“What am I supposed to think?” Balin demanded. “Why didn’t you tell him who you were? Why weren’t you up front with him from the start? Why leave him to recognize you because of the one time you forget to wear your helm?” He stopped. “You two met when you were acting as a member of the city watch, didn’t you.”

Dwalin grunted, taking another drink.

“Oh, that’s a wonderful first impression to make on the lad,” Balin muttered. “You’re supposed to be better than this.”

Dwalin glared at the fire as though it had personally offended him. “Are you finished?”

Balin bristled at the snide question, but forced himself to calm down. “Not by a long shot, but I know I’ll not get any answers out of you if I don’t let you speak.”

Dwalin snorted. “Sounds about right.”

Balin sighed. “Dwalin.”

Dwalin glanced over at him out of the corner of his eye before sighing heavily himself. “I wasn’t kidding about him needing the apprenticeship. He wouldn’t have gotten one on his own.”

Balin refused to be distracted by acknowledging the truth. “Why did you let me think it was because of Nori?”

“Because you wouldn’t interrogate me about it,” Dwalin growled before looking down into the inside of his tankard, as if it held the secrets of Middle-Earth. “We met each other too early.”

“Too early?” Balin frowned. “What do you mean?”

Dwalin looked disgusted. “If you can’t figure it out, then you’re not half as clever as Thorin thinks you are.”

Balin rolled his eyes. “Soulmates are supposed to be attracted to each other, you realize.”

Dwalin’s muscles coiled into quivering tension, and when he spoke, his voice shook with barely-contained fury. “He’s a _child_ I should be _protecting_.”

Balin closed his eyes for a moment as he sighed gently. “Dwalin--”

“And then you have the _gall_ to suggest that I got him an apprenticeship just so that I could _prey_ on him?” Dwalin’s teeth were gritted. 

“Dwalin, I’m sorry--”

In the blink of an eye, Dwalin had leapt out of his chair with a wordless shout, and threw his tankard as hard as he could at the fireplace. The tankard slammed into the hearth and bounced off of the back of the fireplace, before finally coming to a stop at Dwalin’s feet, a large dent in the side of it.

Balin stared at the dented metal before turning his attention to Dwalin.

Dwalin glared at him before throwing himself back into his armchair and running a hand over his face. “If my own brother thinks I’m capable of doing something that horrible, I shouldn’t be here.”

“Dwalin, what I said was inexcusable,” Balin said bluntly. “I was getting angry by the fact that you never feel the need to let others know what you’re thinking or feeling, and if I’d just _known_ the reason why you left the _uzsal_ , it would’ve been a relief.”

Dwalin snorted.

“I mean it, Dwalin,” Balin said, fighting down the rising irritation as best he could. “You might think that we might not care, or that we’d never understand--”

“Back then, no one did,” Dwalin cut in, staring at the fire again.

“Back then, no one knew that your soulmate hadn’t been born yet,” Balin countered. “And now that he’s here, what are you going to do?”

“Leave him alone, what else?” Dwalin said, as though it made perfect sense.

“Leave him--” Balin repeated incredulously before he stopped himself. “Why in Durin’s name would you do something like that?”

Dwalin looked down at the dented tankard as he muttered, “I’m caring about someone other than myself.”

“Throwing my words back at me isn’t going to get you out of answering, lad,” Balin said firmly.

“What makes you think I was lying?” Dwalin muttered. “I made sure he got an apprenticeship so he wouldn’t starve. Best thing I can do for him now is to leave him alone, let him make his own way.”

“You’re already a part of his life, Dwalin,” Balin pointed out with a sigh. “You can’t just disappear from it because you want to.”

“I don’t want to,” Dwalin murmured. “I _need_ to. I have things to take care of now.”

“Things by the names of Kollr Longshanks and the esteemed Captain Solvi,” Balin said with a snort. “If you do this, you’re going to lose him.”

“And if I don’t, he and his family are going to be in danger.” Dwalin shook his head. “He doesn’t need some _uzsal_ pervert watching his every move.”

“Shouldn’t that be his decision to make?” Balin asked gently.

“Not when he’s young enough to run home to his older brother because he didn’t think he was good enough,” Dwalin’s growl sounded defeated. “He needs a chance to be his own dwarf, and he won’t do that around me.”

Balin shook his head. “You give him too little credit, brother.”

“And you give him too much,” Dwalin snapped, his ire returning. “I saw what he looked like the first time I met him. He was shaking in his boots because we were trying to arrest Nori.”

“The lad’s fifty-seven, Dwalin,” Balin said reasonably. “Show me a lad that age who wouldn’t be intimidated by three full-grown guards of the city watch beating down his door. Especially ones who were coming for one of the _two_ family members he has left in all of Arda.”

Dwalin glared at the fire. “He doesn’t need me.”

Balin’s eyebrows rose. “You’d be surprised.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _uzsal_ \- "most lonely"
> 
> I used [this online neo-Khuzdul to English dictionary](http://www.scribd.com/doc/98387422/Khuzdul-Dictionary-E-K-v01-JUN12) for the term. Since I couldn't find "voiceless" or "mute" on the list, I figured I'd go for a term that would be equivalent to what I was thinking of to describe the group Dwalin ran with when he was younger.


	6. Pointless (Chapter 21, Dwalin POV)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He tried to keep away. He really did.

The door opened more easily than Dwalin had expected.

He shouldn’t have been surprised -- it was nearly midnight, and the lad was still in that sleep that was more like death.

Maybe it was because he was half-expecting Dori to yank open the door and interrogate him. The two of them hadn’t crossed paths since they'd worked together to rescue Ori, but even a blind dwarf could tell that Dori wasn’t thrilled with his presence. It was one of the reasons why Dwalin hadn’t bothered coming to see the lad since he’d fallen unconscious.

Another part of it, if Dwalin was being honest with himself, was that he felt silly for coming.

When he’d dropped by Balin’s office the previous evening to ask about Ori’s health, Balin had given him a long look and had said in that mild, irritating tone that if he was so concerned about how the lad was doing, he was more than welcome to visit. And then he blatantly lied about needing to see Thorin for a meeting, and left Dwalin alone with his tea tray and his papers.

So, fine, Dwalin would see the lad, but he wouldn’t see him during the day when everyone was around to gawk at him. He hadn’t told anyone what they were to each other, and since Fili and Kili hadn’t tried to pester him about their relationship, Ori was obviously keeping mum about it as well.

He wasn’t sure if he felt relieved or hurt by the lad’s discretion.

It wasn’t like there was anything _to_ tell. The lad wasn’t of age, and Dwalin had other things to worry about than whether or not his soulmate was doing well in his apprenticeship, or what kind of friendship he had with Thorin’s nephews. That was what he told himself, at any rate.

Dwalin shook his head, reminding himself that he needed to concentrate on the here and now, and if he wanted to make sure that he wasn’t found in Ori’s room, then he’d have to be quick about it.

The lad’s room was sparse. There was a fire going in the small fireplace, and one of Balin’s chairs had been moved into the room, most likely to replace the one that Dori had broken in a fit of pique. There was a small bookcase near the foot of Ori’s bed. And there was Ori.

His skin was too pale, was the first thing that came to mind. Too pale, with his ginger hair standing out against it and against the mountain of pillows that kept him propped up so he could still breathe through the broken nose. He twitched a few times in his sleep, his eyebrows drawing down into a frown, his lips drawing down as well.

With a glance behind him to make sure that no one was coming down the hallway, Dwalin stepped into the room and closed the door behind him.

He was bad at this. On the battlefield, there were soldiers who had taken serious injuries and were on the cusp of life and death, but when they were unconscious, Dwalin never saw them. He figured that if they were going to drop off, they were too insensate to remember that other people were around and watching them, let alone remember that they were still alive.

He wondered if he should’ve brought some kind of basket of food or something. Was that something dwarves brought sick loved ones?

As soon as he thought the question, he mentally recoiled from it. As he took in the soft, ginger hair, the start of what could be an impressive beard given a few decades, and the long, quick fingers laying on top of the quilt that Dori had brought with him from his house, Dwalin was a bit amazed that Ori still looked attractive, despite everything. Oh, aye, the bandage would be gone in a week or two -- he remembered breaking his own nose when he was some decades older than Ori was now, and it hadn’t been pleasant. But those lips, that could say all sorts of things in a warm, soft voice… those large, brown eyes like the stag that Dwalin could remember so vividly during their wandering years… 

Dwalin stopped himself, and shook his head hard, as if it would actually help.

As he glanced around the room again, he found himself wondering why Dori wasn’t around. The dwarf hung around Ori as though Ori were going to drop off any minute, and he needed to be there when the lad breathed his last.

Dwalin forced himself to stop moving, and breathe deeply.

Ori wasn’t going to die. He wasn’t.

Oin might have thought that he was, judging from the way he was nearly dead to the world, but Dwalin knew better. There was no way that his soulmate could let himself be killed like this. Ori wouldn’t survive torture at the hands of some for-hire criminal, only to die when he was safe.

Dwalin gritted his teeth and walked forward, gently sitting on the edge of the bed and leaning forward before he let himself start following that path of thinking. It was over. Done. He’d rescued Ori, Fili and Kili had gotten some training into the bargain, and Dori had seen for himself that he at least had Ori’s well-being in mind.

Now he was stuck staring down at his soulmate, and the only thing he could think of was the ginger hair resting against his forehead.

Carefully, so carefully, he reached out and brushed it aside as best he could, not letting his fingers touch the lad’s skin. He was already breaking his self-imposed rules by coming to see him. He was _not_ going to touch him. He wasn’t that much of a monster.

Despite his best efforts, though, he felt something ease inside of him, just a little.

Dwalin had had his share of wounds over the decades, but there was only one wound that he’d felt the sting of for so long that he didn’t remember a time when it wasn’t hurting. And it had started to ease in Ori’s presence, the thorns and knots of pain wrapped around the center of his chest untangling strand by strand. The longer he sat there on Ori’s bed, the more he could feel it start to loosen.

The realization made him sick to his stomach.

"What am I supposed to say to you?" Dwalin murmured, some of his irritation spilling out of him as he leaned in closer. "What do you want me to do? Mahal’s beard, you can't even hear me."

He leaned in closer, his lips at Ori’s temple. The ache eased further.

“I should be doing something,” he half-growled, trying not to remember Ori shackled to a wall inside some sort of freezer, covered in ice-water and trembling so fiercely it was a wonder the lad hadn’t just shaken apart under the strain. He couldn’t help but remember feeling so helpless in the face of his soulmate’s pain. If he had had the chance, he would have turned around and killed every dwarf he could lay his hands on who weren’t the dwarves who’d come with him to rescue Ori in the first place. Even now, he felt helpless because Ori was unconscious, and there was nothing he could do about it. He couldn’t will him awake, and even thinking about brushing his fingers against the lad’s skin was out of the question, let alone anything more… involved than that.

“Not holding your hand,” he said, more to himself than to Ori. Try as he might, he couldn’t make himself pull away just yet. Dwalin didn’t have healer’s hands. He would never be able to soothe away hurts like he saw Thorin do when the boys were smaller. He would never be able to find the right things to say like his brother would in order to cheer someone up. If anything, his years with the uzsal taught him that he was meant for fighting, for anger, for pain.

“This is pointless.” Every time he’d been cornered into having a conversation with his soulmate, there were never gentle words traded. There were flashing eyes meeting his, a too-young, slender frame stepping in too close until there was no way that Dwalin could ignore him. If they were ever to have a quiet moment in their relationship, it would be the silence after a hard-won fight.

Bowing his head, he could feel the weight of all of the years he’d been alive, the years he’d spent with the uzsal as if they could get anywhere close to healing the ache inside of him. All those years wasted, spent being angry at dwarves who tried to help, and were rubbish at it.

He thought he’d been helping when he assigned Nyr and Austri to protect his soulmate, and now Ori was in this mess because Dwalin had to protect his soulmate from himself.

Ori needed to be his own dwarf -- not someone who followed along beside him, doing anything Dwalin wanted and not thinking for himself. Ori was still so young, so impressionable. Fili and Kili were eager to please, wanting to get everything right, and they were just Dwalin’s students. If Ori had ever acted like that around him…

No. He hadn’t, and he wouldn’t. It was gratifying to see Ori stand up to him each time they’d spoken, though when he’d looked at him so earnestly when he was hurt, Dwalin had wanted to sweep him up and hold him close.

No, Ori wasn’t exactly like Fili and Kili, but he was still so very young. Dwalin had to leave him be for his own sanity, if not for Ori’s safety.

It didn’t help that when those lovely brown eyes looked at him, he felt like he could drown in them forever. Even looking at him now, sick and asleep, Dwalin felt something in his chest start to ease, as though the deep ache from when he had come of age had finally eased its stranglehold on him a little.

Closing his eyes, he breathed slowly, trying not to think of how the lad smelled of clean sheets and warmth. He’d locked away sick, vile criminals for less.

“You don’t deserve me,” he breathed, shaking his head. Ori didn’t deserve a broken-down, old warrior like him, especially not one who couldn’t even protect his soulmate from being tortured.

As Dwalin pulled back, he could see Ori’s eyebrows twitch down for a moment.

It was then that Dwalin also noticed movement out of the corner of his eye.

Rising from the bed quickly, he turned to face the newcomer, opening his mouth to snap something, anything, when he found himself facing down his king.

Dwalin blinked. “Thorin--”

Thorin, who was resting against the door frame with his arms folded over his chest, watched him steadily, indulging in one of those looks that revealed nothing about what was happening behind his eyes.

Dwalin knew how he must have looked. He’d thrown predators into the highest, most perilous cells on the mountainside for less, and the fact that he’d nearly _touched_ the lad while he was asleep-- He started to feel sick. “I didn’t--”

Thorin lifted a hand.

Dwalin set his jaw, wondering if he would be allowed the mercy of being able to turn himself in to the nearest magistrate, or if Thorin would summon the guards to drag him there. His stomach twisted sharply in his gut.

“Come with me,” Thorin murmured. Then he turned and left the room.

Dwalin frowned, not sure what was happening. He glanced one last time at Ori, who hadn’t stirred at all. And then he followed his best friend out of the room.

Thorin was quiet as he led the way through the corridors until at last they ended up at Dwalin’s own bedchambers. “I hope you don’t mind meeting here. I would offer my own rooms, but seeing as how Fili and Kili still feel they have every right to wander in unannounced…”

Dwalin shook his head quickly, opening the door and leading the way inside. Soon, he and Thorin were sitting in front of a fire that Thorin had stoked carefully, with Thorin’s eyes watching him steadily. It might have been reassuring once, but Dwalin’s stomach only twisted again, coupled with a pain in his heart.

“I didn’t do--” Dwalin began, turning away from Thorin’s gaze. Didn’t do what? He’d been found in Ori’s room, sitting on his bed. If Thorin had seen him brush the hair from the lad’s forehead, he couldn’t even say that he didn’t _touch_ him, because he knew what it looked like.

“No, you didn’t,” Thorin said gently.

Dwalin’s gaze snapped to meet his incredulously.

Thorin shrugged. “I know you, Dwalin. You would never hurt someone while they slept, and the lad has been hurt enough as it is. Whatever wrong he might have done you, he’s since repaid it.”

If Dwalin had thought he was going to be sick before, he could almost feel the bile rising up from his stomach now. “He didn’t do anything wrong.”

Thorin considered that for a long moment before nodding once and turning back to the fire.

A long, choking silence stretched between them.

“What did you mean?” Thorin’s question, for all its softness, felt so loud in front of the fire.

Dwalin frowned, not sure he understood.

Thorin glanced at him, the darkness of the room leeching the blue from his eyes. “You said ‘you don’t deserve me’.”

Dwalin breathed in slowly, fighting down the urge to be sick. “What do _you_ think?” he managed with a growl.

Thorin gave him a steady look, and all Dwalin could think of was the way Thorin had looked at him all those years ago when he’d left the uzsal with that same damnable look that never let anyone see what he was thinking.

Dwalin set his jaw and glared at the fire, wanting to pretend for a moment that Thorin wasn’t looking at him with that blank look in his eyes, as though he didn’t know what to think of finding his brother-in-arms in an apprentice’s room.

He wasn’t sure how long he stared at the fire, but he heard the way Thorin shifted in his chair.

“I don’t know what it means,” Thorin admitted finally. “Not when you sound like that.”

Dwalin gritted his teeth harder, wanting to be anywhere but in front of this fire with his closest friend. He knew that Thorin wasn’t looking down on him, but he couldn’t shake the feeling that Thorin might be disappointed in him, though about what, he wasn’t entirely sure.

“He’s too young,” Dwalin snapped. “He has his whole life ahead of him, and he shouldn’t waste it--” He stopped, shaking his head firmly.

“Is he wasting it?” Thorin murmured. “He seems to be learning well enough from Balin.”

“That’s the one thing I’ve done _right_ so far,” Dwalin growled.

“Then what are you doing wrong?” Thorin turned to look at the fire.

“I shouldn’t have gone to his room,” Dwalin growled. “He’s still unconscious, and it’s not like I can _do_ anything to fix _that_.”

Thorin seemed to consider that for a long while before he said, “Oin thinks that the boy might still hear all that goes on around him.”

Dwalin hunched down in his seat, glaring at the fire and not caring if it burned his eyes. “Even more reason why I shouldn’t have been there in the first place,” he muttered darkly. He wasn’t sure if he had wanted Thorin to hear the statement or not, but he wasn’t surprised when blue eyes leeched black in the firelight glanced over at him.

“Then why were you in his room in the first place?” The question might have been phrased accusingly, but all Dwalin could hear was gentle curiosity.

Dwalin wanted to pick up Grasper and Keeper and start laying waste to an army of orcs. It would’ve been miles better than sitting in front of this fire with his best friend. “I--”

Bitter recriminations echoed through his mind like a team of smiths, battering away at some ingot of iron -- he’d been more deeply damaged by his time with the uzsal than he’d thought, if he could find a lad more than ten years away from coming of age beautiful; his soul was still aching after all this time, and no matter how honorable he was trying to be, some part of him desperately wanted to be near the lad.

Dwalin shook his head. “He gave up.”

Thorin frowned, but didn’t ask for clarification.

Feeling sick to his stomach, Dwalin continued. “When I found him in there, shackled to a wall inside a meat freezer. He thought I was…”

Thorin had some small measure of mercy in him. “And he said he wanted to die?” he prodded gently.

“He said he was sick of it,” Dwalin whispered.

“Oin said he’d been tortured,” Thorin murmured. “It’s possible he was sick of being in pain.”

Dwalin’s stomach twisted again. He wanted to get out of this chair, and stay with Ori until he woke, damn the consequences. Thinking about the idea of his one bone-deep ache finally disappearing like so much smoke was attractive. Aye, he could see why Ori would be sick of being in pain.

The idea of being near him, looking him in the eye, being so _close_ to him, but being unable to touch because he was so _young_ \--

“He gave up in there,” Dwalin muttered. “It was my fault.”

“You didn’t know that Nyr and--”

“Stop defending me,” Dwalin snapped. “It was my own damned fault, and I shouldn’t stick around if all I’m going to do is keep hurting him. He’s lying in a sleep that’s almost like death, and it’s _my fault_.”

Thorin turned to look at him, his face carefully blank.

Dwalin glared back, not caring that Thorin was his king, or his friend.

Thorin seemed to see something in Dwalin’s face, because he asked, “What do you intend to do about it?”

“What do you think I’m going to do?” Dwalin growled, his lips pulling into a smile that was more like he was baring his eyeteeth. “I’m going to find Kollr Longshanks and I’m going to _kill_ him.”

“And after that?” Thorin asked calmly.

Dwalin’s surprise at the question made him wonder if Thorin was being thick on purpose. No one dwarf went against Kollr Longshanks and lived. Nori had only managed it by running like hell, and even if Dori had managed to evade capture by being smarter than Kollr’s thugs, Kollr hadn’t been trying all that hard in the past. The number of thugs that had been there when Dwalin had arrived showed that Kollr was starting to mean business.

Ori’s kidnapping and torture was proof positive of that.

“You’ve got to be joking.” Dwalin sneered. “No one crosses Kollr Longshanks and lives, especially not if it’s a dwarf out for his blood.”

Thorin stared at him, a twinkle in his eye. “I’ll ask again -- what are you going to do afterwards?”

The faith that he would make it out alive was reassuring, if a bit worrying. “If by the grace of Mahal--” Dwalin couldn’t help spitting out the phrase, considering that he’d lived for decades thinking that his Maker had forsaken him, “--I actually _survive_ , then I’ll leave Ered Luin.”

Thorin’s eyebrows rose.

“The lad doesn’t need me around,” Dwalin said, torn between a vague jealousy at his soulmate’s self-sufficiency, and pride that his soulmate wasn’t a weak-willed limpet. “He’s strong enough on his own. He needs to live his own life, make his own choices.”

“Are you going to tell him your plan?” Thorin asked.

“Why bother him with details?” Dwalin turned back to the fire, telling himself he wasn’t grumbling. “He’ll not miss me.”

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw his friend nod once before he too turned towards the fire.

The fire crackled and popped as it continued to burn.

“Tell him anyway,” Thorin said, not looking away from the fire. The reds and golds flickering across his face made him look almost like a living statue.

“Why?” Dwalin muttered.

Thorin sighed gently through his nose. “I would want to say farewell to my soulmate, if given the chance.”

Dwalin glanced over at him. “Still haven’t found him?”

Thorin shook his head. “There are some plans I’m thinking of putting into motion in the coming years. I can’t risk finding him now.”

“If he really _were_ your soulmate, he would understand that returning home means everything to you,” Dwalin mumbled. “No matter what some mad witch says.”

It could have been a trick of the firelight, but Dwalin was fairly sure he saw his friend smile. “Do you think Ori won’t support you?”

Dwalin’s expression clouded over. “I’ll not twist him into something for my benefit. He deserves a chance to be happy.”

“And he won’t be happy with you,” Thorin said in a steady voice. His words wanted to become a question, to Dwalin’s ear, but he knew Dwalin too well to ask.

“You heard me before,” Dwalin muttered. “He doesn’t deserve _me_.”


	7. A Little Errand (Chapter 24, Guest POV)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's just a little errand, but it'll solve a whole lot of problems.
> 
> And who wouldn't want Captain Dwalin in hock to them, really?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Spoiler Alert! This is set during Chapter 24, which I haven't posted yet (because it's not finished just yet). If you don't want to be spoiled for a very important event in the upcoming Chapter 24, don't read!

Captain Dwalin had always been a funny bird. Honest, loyal to a fault, always paid his debts, no matter who it was he owed. He’d taken advantage of that a time or two over the few years they’d known each other, and he wasn’t sorry for it. Having a “friend” in the Watch was good; having a Captain was better.

Still, he wasn’t sure why he was here in an alleyway just after midnight instead of back in the woods. He’d run afoul of Kollr and it had been easier to let the heat die down than stick around. Throwing himself into the fire on the Captain’s say-so was stupid, but he had an investment to protect.

That’s what he told himself, anyway.

“You’re here,” Dwalin grunted, glaring at the corner where the dwarf was tucked away.

With a shrug, the dwarf stayed where he was in the shadows. “Don’t sound so surprised,” he said, a teasing “tsk-tsk” in his voice. “You said it was something big.”

The large dwarf’s face twisted into a ferocious scowl. “This isn’t the time for your shit.”

“It’s the _perfect_ time for my ‘shit’,” the dwarf said smugly. “You want something done, and it’s something you can’t do as a Captain. You’ll owe me _big_ for this.”

“When you find out why I want it done,” Dwalin growled, “you’ll not charge me.”

“You sound pretty sure of that,” the dwarf said, intrigued. “After all that we’ve _been_ through, what makes you think I won’t have the biggest marker on you for _years_ for this?”

Dwalin’s grin was nastier than a goblin knife, and twice as sharp. “Remember that address you gave me?”

Ice ran through his veins. The only reason his smirk stayed in place was because he’d been threatened by scarier professional torturers in the past. “Did you fuck up already?” He kept himself from wincing at how brittle his voice had sounded. “You’ll owe me double for that.”

“The little one got caught,” Dwalin said gruffly. “The Chemist got his hands on him, and now he’s blind.”

The dwarf had been wrong before. He hadn’t had ice in his veins, because now he was frozen solid.

The little one, with his smiles like sunlight, inkstains everywhere, soft and pleading. Blind.

Fury took over.

Dwalin must’ve been expecting it, because one moment, the dwarf had leaped at him, knives in both hands, and the next, his wrists were held in a punishing grip as his knives landed on the ground with ringing finality.

The dwarf lifted his gaze to meet Dwalin’s.

“You don’t owe me,” the dwarf snarled, his voice so low because it was all he could do to keep from screaming, “Your arse is _mine_.”

Dwalin smirked at him before sneering, “You sound pretty sure of that.”

The dwarf jerked hard, trying to free his hands, but Dwalin’s grip just got tighter until the tips of his fingers tingled. The dwarf tried to kick Dwalin square in the stones, but Dwalin just snorted and blocked his leg with laughable ease.

“Are you done?” Dwalin asked mildly.

The dwarf bared his teeth. “Give me one reason why I shouldn’t gut you right now.”

“Because if you kill me, you lose your best shot at Longshanks.”

The dwarf’s eyes widened. “What’re you talking about?”

“I’m going to kill Longshanks, and I thought you might like to help me.”

***

After hearing Dwalin’s plan, he’d expected for it to work up to a point, blow up in their faces, and end with them kneeling in front of Kollr Longshanks and dying very messily.

He thought the only reason the stupid plan had actually worked was because he and Dwalin didn’t care if they lived or died, and dwarves with nothing to lose were damn dangerous.

They were inside some warehouse or other that Kollr must’ve gotten recently, because Dwalin’s accomplice didn’t recognize it from his days as Kollr’s lackey.

More importantly, they were inside some meatlocker, with the walls and floor covered in frost.

When they’d walked inside, Dwalin hadn’t met his confused look. Just took his time locking the unconscious crime lord into manacles that had been bolted into one wall. Whoever’d done it had done good work.

Kollr Longshanks was nearly five-and-a-half feet tall -- taller than Dwalin by a few inches, at least. He had long, black hair that fell in waves to the middle of his back, festooned with braids. His beard was an intricate display of interconnected braids to the point where, when Dwalin hooked a finger around a clasp near the bottom of his beard and lifted, a latticework beginning at his cheeks rose in response.

“Thought we were killing him,” the dwarf said, eying Dwalin’s large fingers as they twisted through Kollr’s braids.

“We are,” Dwalin said, not looking at him. He pulled out a knife from his belt and eyed it critically.

The dwarf took out a fleshing knife. Dwalin didn’t react.

“Didn’t think you had the stomach for this sort of thing,” the dwarf said mildly. He was blatantly fishing for information, but he didn’t think he’d get it.

Finally, Dwalin’s eyes, cold and blue, slid over to meet his gaze. And stared at him.

For the first time since they’d met, the dwarf was scared of him. Because that was the look of a dwarf without a soul.

***

He remembers flashes of it, later.

He remembers the animal fear in Kollr’s green eyes when he realizes that they’re not scared of him, and no one’s coming to rescue him, because no one knows that he’s gone.

He remembers the clumps of hair and braids, the bits of skin littering the floor, the blood drying dark against the frost. The clasps tinkle like little bells when they hit the floor and bounce out of undone braids.

He remembers Dwalin talking about the uzsal, about what they did to themselves to make the pain stop. How none of it ever worked. Kollr’s eyes widened.

He remembers his hand driving a knife into Kollr’s gut as if it had a mind of its own. He can see it slicing Kollr open from navel to ribs, blood pouring out of him. His hands grabbed at strips of skin and _pulled_.

He remembers Kollr threatening, screaming, blubbering, and then finally pleading. For his life first, then just for mercy.

“I’ll give you the mercy Mahal never gave me,” Dwalin’s whisper shook with barely-controlled rage.

The perfect imprint of Dwalin’s war hammer in the side of Kollr’s crudely-shaved head is beautiful.

After he checked that Kollr was dead, the dwarf watched as Dwalin removed a piece of paper from a pocket and offered it to him wordlessly, not even looking at him.

“If you want to send a message,” Dwalin murmured, sounding hollow, “now’s the time.”

The dwarf patted his pockets, only to look up and find Dwalin offering him a quill and ink bottle.

His sight blurring with unshed tears, the dwarf scrawled out a quick message, balled it up in one hand, and shoved it into the corpse’s mouth.

It had been laughably easy to take the body to the Hall of Justice and string it up by the neck. Nobody saw them, and if they thought they did, the amount of blood they were wearing would blind any onlookers with any sense long enough to get the job done.

The two of them stared at the swinging corpse before the dwarf turned away. He needed to get out of here. He thought of going home at first -- laugh, tease, stuff his face. But one look at his clothes, and he knew he wouldn’t do it. Too marked, too damaged. They didn’t need him around. He’d just dirty their lives up. No, he needed his woods and his caves to think about what happened. That’s where he belonged.

“Nori.”

Nori stopped, and then looked over his shoulder at Dwalin.

“I’m sorry.”


End file.
